Ifeoluwa Mokelu
Nigerian-American influencer , Jackie Aina who is a beauty and lifestyle influencer based in America recently released a new collection in her candle business and Nigerians did not take it so well. She named this collection the ‘Owambe collection’ and names each different scents a Nigerian slang so it seems “culturally inclined”.
She however did not expect the backlash that came with this; she has four scents named ‘soft life’, ‘spice of life’, ‘no wahala’ and ‘soro soke’. Soro Soke in Yoruba means to ‘speak up’ and it became very popular in 2020 after the EndSARS protest.
READ ALSO: EndSARS Report: Buhari Dragged To Court For Failing To Arrest Indicted Soldiers, Policemen
Now, the main reason why this name was not accepted by people from Jackie Aina is the fact that she was quite quiet during the whole protest as she did not use her platform to raise awareness concerning the protest or even help in bringing justice to light; she infact did not “soro soke” at all during the whole protest period and has not earned the right to speak on it or in this case, adopt the phrase to name her products.
Nigerians have also been speaking up against her and how she is being disrespectful by using a phrase that’s caused people their lives so causally to promote her product even without supporting the cause of which it was known for in the first place. There’s also an explanation on why people don’t agree that she should feel entitled to using the phrase just because she’s Nigerian.
